allAfrica.com: Mauritius: Kreol morisien matters (Page 1 of 2)

English language is the official medium of instruction at primary school level. Students who have an average understanding of the medium have to develop "survival skills".

They struggle to memorise words and concepts, repeat what the teacher says and keep quiet. Those who cannot cope end up as low achievers and resent schooling. Such is the plight of the majority of our students. Even if the 'bridging the gap' initiative is laudable, yet the following comments from constructivist curriculum developers might be enlightening for our local situation:

Attempting to make the curriculum relevant through pedagogies that connect classroom learning with the 'real world' may well provide a bridge that motivates all students to engage with the learning process, a motivation that is often missing when the curriculum is divorced from the lives of students. Many students who struggle with the mores and social practices of schooling-that is, have trouble 'doing school'-need to see that schooling has some meaning for them.

It tends to be middle-class students who best handle decontextualised school knowledge. This means that classroom practices should re-cognize and value students' background experiences while connecting with their worlds beyond the classroom. Students with the cultural capital to 'do school well' may be able to do work of high intellectual quality in the absence of connectedness, but a schooling system that serves the whole community should seek to ensure that all students are able to demonstrate connectedness between the classroom and the world beyond it. (Haynes, D., Mills, M., Christie, P., & Lingard, B. 2006).

In the absence of a pedagogical programme which could account for the life experience and home language of our kids, teachers on their part have to grapple with Creole, French and English in classroom situations. Statistical figures indicate that 70.1% of Mauritians use Creole as their home language. Whilst national educational policies fail to recognize this crucial aspect for teaching and learning in our schools, which could otherwise help our children gain independence and knowledge.

As a result, this would have been more likely to help the majority of Mauritian students, and not just the 'privileged few' to achieve higher potential learning. In the meantime, it costs a lot to the country. It is estimated that out of 19,437 joining the primary schools, 12,149 will be SC holders and only 5,686 will complete secondary education with a Higher School Certificate. Other estimates ( D.Virahsawmy, 2006, in www.boukiebanane) figure some 15,000 school leavers who do not have basic literacy and only some 1,500 who achieve creative literacy which is the highest level of literacy.

An attempt to curb school failures

There is a strong correlation between language, culture and literacy. If the ZEP initiative, for example, is an attempt amongst others to curb school failures and to increase the level of literacy, not much has been achieved during these past few years, except in the case of Jean Eon RCA ( a ZEP school) where remarkable progress has been noted. A range of research (Bernstein 1971a, 1971b; Anyon 1981; Council et al.1982) has demonstrated that in schools serving disadvantaged communities, the pedagogy is sometimes socially supportive but not 'intellectually demanding'.

It has been observed that good social outcomes are more likely to be achieved by classroom practices that are intellectually demanding, connected to the students' worlds beyond schools and, not socially supportive classrooms alone. This is not to downplay the importance of social support for all students-rather to suggest that social outcomes may be more effectively achieved when social support is connected and works with and values differences.

If we go as far back as the 1940's, we find that two Reports during the British Colonisation of Mauritius highlighted that our linguistic policy and practices in schools were already considered as major obstacles to an efficient educational system. Ward (1944: 11) considers that the linguistic aspect is the main preoccupation of our teachers. Ward stated: 'I now come to the work the teachers are called on to do. The first and greatest problem here is the medium of instruction'.

For J.E.Meade (1967: 208), the linguistic issue is the 'greatest handicap to successful education in Mauritius'. For the post-independence period six official reports were published amongst which two of them (Richard's report, 1979; and Ramdoyal, 1990) refer directly to the teaching of languages in schools. Glover's report (1973) laid particular emphasis on the importance of undertaking research in this field to inform national policies.

More recently, the ADEA (Association for the Development of Education in Africa, Draft Report, 2005) depicted the real situation. It gives us insight into the contemporary aspects of the linguistic issue with reference to Kreol Morisien. At para.156, it states: a central detrimental aspect of the primary school curriculum is that it is taught in English- a foreign language for the majority of Mauritians. It is the key element in reproducing social inequality. English is the language of the privileged few. French is the language of prestige and culture.

Creole is the everyday communication language of over 90% of all Mauritians. International research over the past decade has demonstrated in numeraous countries that teaching numeracy and literacy in a child's mother tongue increases academic achievement substantially. It is easier for children to master secondary languages in the later grades once basic competencies have been established in their mother tongue. It is ironic that the Ministry expends considerable resources on offering ancestral languages-Asian and Arabic- while the national language is ignored[ ]

web allafrica.com	Enter your search terms	Submit search form
OR subscribers use AllAfrica's premium search engine


Use our pull-down menus to find more stories

Today's Most Active Stories